about
Hey, I'm Tobias.
Lead product manager turned founder, based in Taipei. 10+ years shipping other people's products — now I'm building my own, with AI doing a lot of the heavy lifting.
The short version
I'm a German product manager who spent the last decade inside product teams — BMW, the fintech BörseGo (Stock3), the mobility startup Be Around, and most recently GoGroup, where I led delivery on client products end-to-end. I've always had a founder itch too: I started Leit in Berlin back in 2019, a hyper-local services app, before shelving it to focus on my day job.
A few years in, shipping other people's roadmaps stopped being enough. I moved to Taipei, did the NTU Global MBA (Presidential Award, Best of Class 2025), and started using Claude Code and n8n to actually build things myself instead of just writing PRDs about them. That shift is what this site is about: staying relevant means building, not just planning.
What I'm building
Founder journey, Taiwan style
My China connection started at university — Chinese and International Management at HTWG Konstanz, a semester at SWUFE in Chengdu, and later translating strategy docs between Chinese and German at BMW. Taiwan is where that turned into a home base: I did my MBA at NTU in Taipei, and it's where I'm now building NearBuy from the ground up — product, business development, strategy, financing, marketing, sales, all of it.
NearBuy (鄰買)
在地好店，一指即達 — local gems, just a tap away
NearBuy connects local shoppers with nearby independent retailers. Browse stores by category, search for a specific product and check real-time stock across nearby shops, and catch promotions from local merchants — a bridge between people who want convenience and neighborhood businesses that want visibility.
It's live now, launched first around National Taiwan University with students and local shops as the first users, and I'm expanding it across Taipei from there. I'm running everything myself: product, business development, strategy, financing, marketing, and sales.
Get in touch
I like hearing from other builders, PMs figuring out AI, or anyone who wants to talk shop about Taiwan. tobi@nearbuy.com.tw